Note: Alright, this is the LAST chapter that I have done. Everything from here on out is going to be fairly slow, I'm sorry to say, because I've hit the most collosal bout of writer's block that I've faced in a LONG time. I haven't been able to write anything substantial in over a month, and it is killing me Xp. But I promise you that I will work as hard as I can and finish this fic ASAP. Thanks SO much for bearing with me *huggles* I love you guys ^_^.
Chapter Six - Sometimes, You Gotta Hear the Story
Wendsday, 12:30pm
Gus, Juliet, Lassiter, and Henry listened in amazement as Riley told his story, explaining how he had grown up in Miami and that his half brother Nicholas, and Johns, had been in the mob together.
"It was something that everyone knew about, but nobody talked about, you know? He was into bad stuff, but he was a good guy; and he was always looking out for my family and my neighborhood. No one felt right ratting him out to the authorities.
"For a while, things actually went pretty well, you know? He was a great guy around the family, and no one ever knew exactly what he did to protect us; we were just happy that we were safe and that everything was normal."
"But what does any of this have to do with why Johns kidnapped my best friend?" Gus demanded. Riley shot him a look.
"I'm getting to that."
"Guster, sit down," Lassiter ordered. Inwardly cursing, Gus did so. They were so close! All of the nervous energy that had been building up in him during the day was coming to the surface now, and he was finding it hard to sit through the other man's story.
Go on," Juliet encouraged Riley, her voice still quiet and raspy from being chocked. The man drew in a deep breath, and after a moment, went on with his story.
"For almost as far back as I can remember, that was how things went; and according to my family it was all good. It wasn't until there was new blood in the city challenging Johns and my brother that we started getting worried.
"He would disappear, sometimes for days at a time; and when he finally did come back, he would be all tired and dirty and bloody…we knew that something crazy was going on. And then, one day, he got shot." Riley shrugged, and his breath hitched a little, but he was able to continue after only a moments pause. "He'd been in the middle of some kind of shoot-out with a gang and the cops; and a cop shot him. Johns came to see my family and told us how he'd died, and how his snitch on the force had told him that it was all the fault of some rookie cop not even out of the academy who had been assigned to study the mob's behavior, and figured out what they were gonna do. One rookie, who hadn't even observed a real case yet, and her information had gotten his group destroyed and my brother killed." His blue eyes flickered to meet Juliet's across the table. Her eyes widened.
"That was Johns' gang?" she breathed. Riley nodded.
"Yeah. He and my brother were high-ups, too. And he never forgave you for tipping the cops off."
"But it's been years!" Carlton reminded him, his harsh tone disguising his confusion. "If your friend was so mad then why didn't he just kill her right then and there in Miami?"
"She wasn't there," Riley explained. "She tipped them off, but she wasn't involved in the cleanup. Besides, Johns was hurt during the fight that Nick was killed in. He was out of commission for a long time; and by the time he'd recovered, you were long gone, and the snitch had been killed in the "line of duty"-police style, not gang. It took him a while to find out where you were. The bosses didn't care about what had happened; you were a rookie, you know? And Nick was just another guy, and there were plenty more where he came from. But Johns was mad. He and Nick had been partners, and he'd watched him die. So, once he had recovered enough, he contacted my family and delivered the news, and asked me for help.
"It took him time to find out where you'd been transferred to, but eventually he did; and he came up with the whole crazy rob-a-bank-and-take-it-to-Vegas plot."
"Now why would he go to all that trouble when they were both right there in Santa Barbara and a bullet could have put an end to her right then and there?" Henry asked. "She was right there, and yet they lured her to Vegas and got my son involved in it too." Juliet turned awkwardly in her seat to face him. "No offense, Detective," he assured her quickly. Juliet did not look convinced, but she kept her mouth shut and let Riley answer.
"To be honest, I have no idea. I was just supposed to come along for the technical side of things at the bank; he's not too good at that stuff, but I am. And I admit, I'm mad about what happened to my brother. But I was never going to be involved in the actual revenge; just the mechanics at the bank."
"And how did that turn out for you?" Lassiter asked, his tone laced with biting sarcasm.
"He pulled the "I helped your brother out when he needed me; why don't you help me out for him?" card," Riley snapped. "And so I came along for the ride to Vegas. But I didn't want to hurt anyone else, I promise. Your psychic friend wasn't supposed to be part of the picture."
"Well he is!" Gus said. "And you need to help us find him before something terrible happens to him."
"The worst that could have happened to him at this point is he's a little dehydrated. As long as he didn't do something stupid like wander off and try to find his own way back, he should be just fine." Shawn's friends shared a collective wince.
"I think," Henry growled, stepping forward towards Sincha with a clear threat in his voice, "that you should take me to my son now."
*~.~:":~.~*
Wendsday, early morning
Shawn walked all night. He had been unconscious for long enough that the night was like morning to him; and adrenaline made from fear spurred him forward when he got tired. While he was walking slower than he could have to conserve energy, he only took two or three short breaks along the way; and as a result he had covered a lot of ground by the time the sun came up.
"So why am I not getting anywhere?" he wondered. For as far as he had walked, there was nothing but sand and cactus and rock; no little ranches, no abandoned miner's huts, no water. The tire tracks from Johns' truck had even disappeared.
"This is so not like any good movie." At least they always found something. A shack, an old well, some Jawas or a moisture farm…
Some of his earlier panic began to rise in him, but he forced it down. Panic was ineffective when you were with people; it was even more pointless when you were alone. If he was going to into a panic, it was going to happen in Santa Barbara in a supermarket, and it was going to be over a lack of pineapples in stock; not being stuck out in a desert.
Besides, he was starting to get the feeling that Johns hadn't driven him nearly as far as he had said; like they had to have taken a few hours off to rest or something. It would have been nearly twenty-four hours of straight driving, and that just wasn't possible, considering his alertness. If he was right, then they had already had plenty of time to get back and get caught by his friends, who were probably on their way right now.
"Yeah, they're on their way," he said. "Lassie and his gun probably came into play, and Johns probably told them everything. Or Sincha did. Yeah. Sincha definitely would have told. They're on their way, right now…yeah…" He repeated this to himself over and over again, out loud, in his head; because he had to believe that it was true.
When the sun started getting high in the sky, somewhere around ten thirty or so in the morning, Shawn started looking for a place to rest. He'd never spent much time around deserts, but he had seen a lot of survivor movies; and darn it if he was going to try to get anywhere in the heat of the day!
The best shelter that he could come up with was a rock that was stuck into the sand on an angle and about twice as tall as him. The angle of its position would shade him from the sun while it was at its most intense point, but it was in the open enough that no little-or not so little-poisonous things could sneak up and bite him. While he rested, he tried to figure out what to do next.
Until his friends found him and he learned what had happened, he was going to consider them all alright, but in danger. Johns had said that they were just after Juliet, but he doubted that the man had any scruples about who he hurt in the process. Hence stranding him in the desert. And speaking of the desert, he needed to come with a better plan to escape from the biggest sandbox on earth.
"Where is a crazy old hermit with a mule?" he asked a lizard that darted out from under the shade of his rock and climbed onto a little flat stone nearby to sunbath. It flickered its tongue, and Shawn shrugged, mentally naming it Randy.
"Well, yeah, I suppose that the mule wouldn't be such a good thing for you," he conceded. "Their hooves are very…large-ish." He illustrated their shape with his hands. The tongue flicked out again, and Shawn made a face. "Well excuse me, Randy, for bringing up a painful subject. I didn't realize that you'd had problems with the things, I'm sorry." He sighed and squinted out at the bright-lit desert; the Nothingness surrounding him. "I'd even settle for a bicycle right now," he said after a minute, turning back to the creature. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could find one of those, would you?" Randy just stared at him for a second, then scrambled off the rock and darted away. Shawn felt hurt.
"Really, Randy? After all that I've done for you? This bites, buddy. I thought we were friends!" He spent a few more minutes shouting after the lizard, trying to keep himself from going insane-and trying not to notice how hypocritical it was to be doing it. Finally he gave up, and leaned his head back against his rock.
"Stupid lizard," he muttered, letting his eyes close. "You should…never ask a lizard for directions…" It dawned vaguely on him that saying that kind of thing-things that made absolutely no sense whatsoever-was another glaring sign down his road to insanity. But he had walked all night and had no food, and no water, and the heat of the desert was making him sleepy. Before he could do more than remind himself that he had to get going soon so he could get back and save Jules, he was asleep.
When he finally woke up again, it was dark.
"Oh, great, another walk through the night." After taking a few moments of gathering little pebbles out of the sand and arranging them to point his direction-the way that any good wanderer would-he set off again, urgency throbbing tiredly in his brain.
With no tire tracks to follow, his path was a bit more difficult, but he managed. From as far away as the moonlight allowed him to see, he picked a point ahead of him in the direction that the tracks had last pointed, and headed towards it. As long as he could see it, he was still on track.
By sunrise the next day, he was really starting to feel the effects of the desert. Some of it was just basic, physical stuff that he'd been expecting if he was out for too long; but other things were more subtle. When he noticed several odd things, he began compiling a list.
Sudden leap from "I'm thirsty" to "almost ready to die thirsty"
Someone suddenly stuck the desert in an industrial oven
Suddenly exhausted, dizzy, disoriented
Life passing before my eyes; classic sign of near-death
Seeing mirages
It was the mirages that were really starting to get to him; thirsty, tired and hot? Uncomfortable, but he had been there before, if not quite to this extent. But the mirages were something new entirely, and it was frightening. At first they had just been small things, but they had grown progressively worse until he could barely tell reality from fever-induced waking dreams.
He stumbled along through the endless sand, tripping over rocks and cacti and holding delusional conversations with ghosts from his past; everything from Gus to the chief to his parents to Johns and Sincha and Jules and Lassie. Those ones always forced his mind back into the present. Gotta get back… he felt like some kind of prince, going to rescue his lady. Gotta rescue Jules. He tripped forward a few more steps, and then his knees hit something rough and unforgiving. He fell face first into the sand.
For a moment he laid there, the sudden desire to simply lay there and fall asleep almost overpowering him. Yeah it was hot, but the sand was soft enough, and if he stayed in one place, it would be easier for someone to find him. He could just take a little nap while he waited here to be rescued. Jules and Gus would probably come out, anyways; and if she was here, she wouldn't be with the guys who wanted to kill her. Or just the one guy, since Sincha really didn't seem that interested in hurting anyone.
Yes, it would be good to rest. He'd been walking for hours, anyways. He couldn't quite remembered why, but he hadn't stopped to rest for the heat of the day like he had the day before; so it was only fair that he take a rest now. Just a little one. He closed his eyes.
A rattling sound made them snap almost instantly opened.
Shawn slowly lifted his head from the hot desert sand, and stared into the tiny golden eyes of the snake weaving its thick body in front of his face...
"Crap."
*~.~:":~.~*
Note: And we've come full circle, and now I need to be re-inspired to finish things up. Pray that I get my Muse back soon.
By the way, I know that I used the phrase "those ones". I also know that it is bad grammer (my beta made me QUITE aware of that :p *hugs her*). But it was in character, and I left it. You can hate me if you want, but unless you plan on publishing me, I'm not going to change it. Allow me my one grammer mistake and lets move on, okay? O:)
